BOSTON -- Gov. Charlie Baker on Monday criticized the Food and Drug Administration for allegedly taking too long to approve new generic drugs and said progress is being made with the Obama administration on a MassHealth waiver extension he'd hoped to have wrapped up in September.

At the start of annual state hearings to examine health care cost trends, Baker also repeated one of his longstanding criticisms of the health care marketplace- it fails to provide consumers with usable information about costs.

"I wouldn't have brought it up as an issue if I thought anybody was doing it well. I think we have a lot of work to do on this issue," Baker told reporters after his remarks, when asked who was doing price transparency well in Massachusetts. "I think a lot of people around the Commonwealth do a lot of really interesting work, but I think a lot of it is more focused on serving what I would call sort of the policy and the research community and not so much the individual who's dealing with the health care system themselves."

The Republican governor who previously headed up the insurance company Harvard Pilgrim Health Care said he hoped for a discussion with the federal government in early 2017 about making changes to the Affordable Care Act.

The signature law of President Barack Obama's presidency aimed at increasing access to care, the ACA is controversial, blamed for rising costs around the country, and many on the Republican side of the aisle hope to repeal it.

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Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee for president, supports making changes to it.

WATCH: Gov. Baker Avail

"It's my hope that states will be permitted to engage the federal government in an honest conversation about what's working and what needs to be worked on with respect to the ACA sometime early next year," Baker said Monday. He said aspects of the law have "increased the price of the offerings" available through health care exchanges set up by the government to connect individuals and businesses with health insurers.

The Health Connector last month reported premium costs of its offerings of unsubsidized plans will increase an average of 19 percent, though there is a wide variety in prices depending on the plan. Open enrollment begins Nov. 1.

Health care costs overall in Massachusetts increased by 4.1 percent last year, exceeding the benchmark of 3.6 percent set forth in a 2012 law. That same law established the Health Policy Commission, which is hosting the two-day cost trends hearing at Suffolk University Law School.

David Seltz, executive director of the commission, said more people planned to attend this year's cost trends hearing than any prior year.

Baker said that while the cost growth exceeded the benchmark it is "lower than the 2014 trend," and could be attributed to trends outside of inflation, such as shifts in coverage, an aging population, advances in medicine and the opioid crisis.

The Center for Health Information and Analysis last year reported health costs grew 4.8 percent in 2014.

Baker on Monday called out the Food and Drug Administration for what he said was a median of 47 months to approve generic drugs, which offer a cheaper alternative to better-known brands.

"A generic is a chemical equivalent of bio-similarity to something that's already been on the market for 17 years in most cases. How could it possibly take four years to decide whether or not somebody's generic application is the same chemical composition as something that's been in the market for more than a decade?" Baker asked. He said, "The FDA needs to reduce its backlog and recognize the important role the dynamic, competitive generic market has on the overall cost of drugs."

A spokesperson for the agency said the FDA is attempting to lessen the time taken for generic drug approvals and said the average time for approval in fiscal 2015 was 48 months and the median time was 42 months.

According to the FDA, at the beginning of this month the agency began a 10-month review goal for new generic drug applications and there is an expedited review policy for certain generic applications. The agency said the 700 generic drug approvals and tentative approvals made last year was the highest ever in one year.

The Baker administration has for months sought to renegotiate the state's Medicaid waiver with the federal government, hoping to avoid losing $1 billion in annual federal funding starting next July.

Baker said he is "pretty confident" a deal will be reached soon and said discussions in the nation's capital have been "very positive and constructive."

The original deal was made by the Patrick administration and Baker said it is a five-year deal with three years of funding. The discussions could result in a new waiver or an extension of the existing waiver, Baker said.

In addition to providing funding, the new agreement could alter the approach of MassHealth, moving it toward a more holistic model.

"The framework around this is going to incorporate mental health services, behavioral health services and substance use services in a way that we have never been able to do before in Massachusetts, and raises the distinct possibility of coming up with a much more comprehensive way of serving the folks who are on MassHealth, so I'm actually pretty bullish about getting the thing done and having it approved before the end of the year," Baker said.

Asked what was left to be done, Baker said, "We're down to a pretty small number of items that people are going back and forth on."

The governor also said he supports the conditional approval recommended by Department of Public Health staff of a $1 billion expansion of Boston Children's Hospital, saying he does not believe it will contribute to cost growth within the state's health market.

Calling the recommendations "appropriate," Baker said the hospital has made clear that the proposed 71 new beds are "designed to meet a need from out of state and out of country," and they were "not going to have an impact on the local market here."

The Public Health Council plans to take up the expansion proposal on Thursday.

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